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DATELINE July 11, 2016
THAT SNEAKY, MISERABLE, HIGHWAY WIDENING TAX.
The Campaign For Sensible transportation can’t keep their website very current…check it out: sensibletransportation.org but they work hard on trying to make sense of what the Regional Transportation Commission is trying to do so they can get the funding to widen Highway One by adding auxilliary lanes. Debbie Bulger wrote to the Campaign For Sensible Transportation… “As one who opposes the tax measure, I do not and will not make decisions for anyone
| JONATHAN WINTERS ROASTS JOHNNY CARSON. Our popular humor today is so different from these classic years. |
but myself. I feel it is important for CFST to publicize the arguments against the tax measure so people can make up their own minds from a position of knowledge. No one else will address th e real transportation and social justice issues against the tax measure if CFST does not do it”. Then she added “new information and analysis by Richard Stover which shows the Greenhouse Gas Reduction claim in the RTC brochure is incorrect.
Additionally the projection of a faster commute is way overstated by the RTC.
Stover states and asks in his report:
1. How much of the projected reduction can the RTC really claim? The conclusion the public can draw from this is that the Plan guesses they can get 9% reduction in Greenhouse Gas emissions from Plan projects, but it might be less than 5%.
- Are the estimated speeds and CO2 pollution reductions reliable? The RTC neglects to include induced traffic in their analysis.
The Plan analysis is flawed, incomplete, and at odds with the RTC’s Environmental Impact Report. Th e Plan estimates its projects might contribute at least 4.7% of the projected greenhouse gas reductions. But even that estimate seems to be optimistic.
- Are there priority projects that didn’t make it onto the “constrained” list because of lack of potential funding?
- Does the Appendix C use of the word “prioritized” have any relation to that word elsewhere in the Plan?
- If there are priority projects on the unconstrained list (unlikely to be funded) what h appens to the greenhouse gas projections if they are removed from the analysis?
The RTC needs to clarify what projects are included in the greenhouse gas analysis. One final note: The legal document which would enact the proposed 1/2-cent sales tax does not include any reference to the Plan”. End of Bulger/Stover exerpts.
There are numerous statistics, questions, and sources in Richard Stover’s report. Be sure to read all of it. I’ve attempted to cut to some essentials. This’ll go down in County history as one of the biggest boondoggles ever foisted on a community that deserves better treatment.
KUSP RUMOR. I’d be more than happy to refute and apologize for this rumor next week but the source is near unimpeachable!!! “The word is that KUSP is hanging on by thread, making just enough to cover monthly expenses, with just one employee and several volunteers. That’s not good enough to last very long, as expenses beyond month to month come up periodically.
The other word is that no one has stepped forward with an offer to buy KUSP license and equipment. No big surprise since that would be buying an $850,000+ debt as well, with no prospects of income to pay it off. Don’t know what they’re gonna do”. End of rumor!!!
ELERICK’S INPUT. Mr. Paul Elerick of Aptos writes…
HIGHWAYS IN MICHIGAN, ETC.
Had a great two weeks in Michigan with family and friends. It’s always nice to go there in the summer months, and always nice to get back home. I found that transportation is just as short of funding in Michigan as in California. The one most obvious is the deterioration of the highways, never enough time and money to fix them. Michigan has an added level of complexity – they have only the warm months to work on road repair.
Couldn’t find any auxiliary lane projects but did see lots of upgrades to existing secondary roads getting their gravel roadbeds paved for the first time ever. There was no opposition to this asphalting work. Couldn’t find any opposition to added freeway lanes, although there has been some of this in the past. Paving roads is seen by most of the folks there as a good thing.
Michigan is not a backwards state on transportation issues though. They have a fantastic network of bicycle trails throughout the state, and support for bike safety everywhere.
So am I ready to leave my home in Aptos for return to my Michigan “roots”? After living here for the past 55 years, not a chance. It’s probably too late to control urban sprawl in Michigan and California. Michigan has a longer way to go than we do. But let’s not fool ourselves, we need to stay on top of development that brings the need for more real freeway widening, not just six miles of auxiliary lanes to help people who are already here.
(Paul Elerick is a member of, and former co-chair of the Campaign for Sensible Transportation, http://sensibletransportation.org . He’s a current member of Nisene to Sea, a group of mid-county citizens committed to maintaining an open hiking trail from Cabrillo College to Nisene Marks State Park
EDITOR’S (Bratton) NOTE. The opinions on widening highways and auxilliary lanes are Paul Elerick’s…not mine, by a long shot.
GREENSITE’S INSIGHT.
PG&E TREE REMOVAL HAS TO BE CHALLENGED!
The July 6th meeting with PG&E and city representatives was well attended thanks to community activism and little thanks to the city. At the council meeting in late April when this issue was on the council agenda as a presentation allowing no public comment, council stated that the July 6th meeting would be widely publicized. An Immediate Release item that appeared on the city’s website less than a week before the meeting, a hard to locate posting from Santa Cruz Neighbors on Next Door the day before the meeting and a Sentinel Coastlines entry the day of the meeting does not to me constitute a “widely publicized” meeting.
The posting from the city stated that the list of 38 public trees to be removed would be available at the meeting. The three copies available to look at but not take away suggest the city did not anticipate a large turnout. After the Mayor’s opening words, the city arborist introduced the meeting followed by the usual plethora of PG&E operatives dragged forward to respond to questions. It was a rather sorry affair. As one person shared, “I expected a slide show on the project with detailed explanations, scientific evidence and a comprehensive list of trees.” The poster boards with drawings of trees and pipelines did not pass muster for scientific evidence. The most energetic aspects of the meeting came from audience challenges and probing questions. At least questions were allowed in a group setting, a rare occurrence in today’s democratic process where consultants orchestrate small tables and post-it notes with no questions allowed.
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(Gillian Greensite is a long time local activist, a member of Save Our Big Trees and the Santa Cruz chapter of IDA, International Dark Sky Association http://darksky.org Plus she’s an avid ocean swimmer, hiker and lover of all things wild).
| WORLD’S BEST ROLLER COASTER RIDES.
Check out these modern coasters…a far cry from our historic beauty at the Boardwalk. |
PATTON’S PROGRAM. From Gary’s Two Worlds website…
BERNIE SUPPORTERS (July 10th)
Michael Moore has endorsed Bernie Sanders for President. I endorsed Bernie Sanders, too, and was elected as an “alternate delegate” to represent those who voted for Bernie Sanders in the Primary Election in June, in California’s 20th Congressional District. In Santa Cruz County, California, where I live, Bernie Sanders won almost 60% of the vote.
News articles are speculating that Bernie Sanders is planning to endorse Hillary Clinton, before the Convention. I, personally, hope that Bernie Sanders doesn’t do that. As I explained in an Op-Ed not too long ago, a representative democracy presumes that elected representatives are going to be allowed to vote for those whom they represent. While Hillary Clinton is “leading” Sanders in pledged delegates by a substantial margin, and while the Party leaders who are “super delegates” are overwhelmingly in favor of Clinton, Clinton still doesn’t have enough pledged delegates to have been elected before the Convention.
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Gary is a former Santa Cruz County Supervisor (20 years) and an attorney who represents indivuduals and community groups on land use and environmental issues. The opinions expressed are Mr. Patton’s. Gary has his own website, Two Worlds at www.gapatton.net
| THE ABSOLUTE SCARIEST TIGHT ROPE ACT I’VE EVER SEEN!!!
Watch this one…yes, you’ve seen plenty but not as scary as this couple!!! |
SANDY LYDON’S CENTRAL COAST SECRETS. Issue #37 is online now. Full of great photos of Capitola nearly underwater. News about a Nisene Marks walk, another Monterey Bay Walk is coming up and so is a tour of Japan. Then there’s the annual Christmas in Cambria. But mostly, just don’t miss the 1983 flood and storm that sent waves through the Venetian Court. Read it here.
HIP SANTA CRUZ IN THE 1960’S. UCSC Math professor Ralph Abraham has been involved with and fascinated by our local Santa Cruz Hip culture in the 1960’s. He’s collected some statements and interviews from lots of the folks who were there. If you’ve only heard of the Hip Pocket Bookstore and The Barn in Scotts Valley and Ken Kesey’s visits, be sure to read his new book, “Hip Santa Cruz“, It’s available at Bookshop Santa Cruz and around.. You can also hear him on my Universal Grapevine radio program Tuesday night July 12, and it’s archived for two weeks in case you missed it by going to KZSC.org and clicking on the archives link.
CLASSICAL DeCINZO. DeCinzo and PG&E Power lines…see downwards…
EAGAN’S DEEP COVER. Hillary and those gnawing emails…see below!!!
LISA JENSEN LINKS. Lisa writes: ” What are the magic words that every author want to hear from her editor? Find out this week at Lisa Jensen Online Express (http://ljo-express.blogspot.com), as my Beast gets the greenlight (at last!) to go roaring into production. My book is NOT the Disney version; however, Disney’s live-action riff on its own animated Beauty a nd the Beast will be coming out at about the same time, early next year. Looks like it’s going to be a Beastly spring!” Lisa has been writing film reviews and columns for Good Times since 1975.
THAT IS THE QUESTION
(THE NEWEST FILMS IN ORDER OF PERFECTION)
THE INNOCENTS. An 88 on Rotten Tomatoes!!! It’s worth even more than that!!! A French, subtitled , sad, threatening, well-acted, brilliant film that will wrench out your heart…and also your thoughts about faith. Set in Poland at the end of WW2, convent nuns have been raped by Soviet soldiers and 7 are pregnant. A young pretty French doctor stops her life to help them in spite of horrendous odds. It’s a well made film and should win awards…but it probably won’t. It’s too heavy for the awards, being so political and all.
WIENER-DOG. Four separate family stories woven around who owns the Wiener Dog, as it passes from owner to owner. Danny DeVito is great to see back on-screen. Greta Gerwig is more or less boring and adds nothing (which is unusual for her). Kieran Culkin is in it and looks like an overly debauched Daniel Radcliffe. Julie Delpy and Ellen Burstyn also have dinky roles in this randomly constructed half funny mess but they should have stayed home, and so should you.
YO-YO MA’s WONDERFUL EGO or THE MUSIC OF STRANGERS-YO YO MA AND THE SILK ROAD ENSEMBLE. A mess of a documentary. Not one complete piece of music in it. It rambles all over the world showing how musicians continue selling their souls by selling out their true folk music to make a buck. Ther’s a lot of good music being written nowadays both serious and popular…this doesn’t give proper credit to either. Stay home and listen to some music you really like, you’ll be better off.
STILL PLAYING AT A THEATRE NEAR US
FROM BEST TO REALLY BAD
OUR KIND OF TRAITOR. Ewan McGregor and Stellan Skarsgard take the leads in this John Le Carre international money scheme thriller.It’ll remind you of James Bond and Alfred Hitchcock type chase films. Evil Russian Mafia spies, innocent British tourists, messy internal problems with British Government…all stuff that you’ve seen before. And it’s pretty good too.Paris, Bern, Marrakech, French Alps, and of course London are feature attractions. If you like espionage, foreign intrigue, not much blood, and good acting– go for it.
WEINER. As weird as Anthony Weiner is, the social programs he fights for to become Mayor of New York City are way better than Cynthia Mathews’s any day. He’s brilliant, the documentary is well done, and this guy has a lifelong hang up with his name and his “wiener”. So he photographs his crotch and puts it online. Later on, during his Mayor campaign, he has phone sex with a young babe. His famous wife is/was Hillary Clinton’s best friend and advisor. If it wasn’t all true it would be the nutso fantasy of all time. Go see it.
FREE STATE OF JONES. After all the lack of racial representationin last year’s films that was so hugely magnified at this year’s Oscars be prepared for many, many racially focussed films in the enxt few months. Jones is the first. It stars Matthew McConaughey and it’s about the little known history of one southern man’s battle to free the slaves at the end of the Civil War. It’s long ( two hours and 20 minutes) and even dull at times…and its fascinating.
LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP. This sharp, wordy, comedy is from a little known Jane Austen book, “Lady Susan”. If you’re particular, it takes place in England 130 years before Downton Abbey (1790). Plenty of Hayden, Cherubini and Cimarosa-type music. Daughter Hillary convinced me that I’d been slipping critic- wise and that Kate Beckensale is completely out of character, and phoney. It’s a desperate, wordy attempt to make still more money out of anything with Jane Austen’s name on it. The plot centers on what women had to do to survive back then. Go see it if you like Brit costume epics, with lots of scenery and furniture. 99% on Rotten Tomatoes, so go figure. It’s just not all that great a film.
THE BFG. A huge Steven Spielberg special effects version of Roald Dahl’s 1982 children’s book. It lacks charm, warmth, cleverness, and wonderment. It’s even just plain boring for long sections. The BFGiant’s big excitement is in fighting the even bigger giants. It isn’t thrilling either. The effects are very good and may be better in 3D. But you’d be better off waiting and renting it later. Oh yes, the Queen of England is in it too, and she’s also boring.
THE LEGEND OF TARZAN. Tarzan has left the jungle but politics and Christoph Waltz have begun enslaving Congo locals so Tarzan ( Alexander Skarsgård) returns back to the vines. He brings Samuel L. Jackson who plays a more intelligent black version of Gabby Hayes, and does it poorly. The joy of the jungle, Brenda Joyce, Maureen O’Sullivan , Cheetah and Boy are gone. Just war, blood, violence remain. It’s sad to see a tradition like Johnny Weissmuller’s Tarzan squeezed through this absolutley senseless waste.
SWISS ARMY MAN. This is easily the most bizarre film I’ve seen in ten years.Paul Dano almost always plays in odd, nearly insane movies and he’s just as nuts in this one. Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) plays a dead corpse who farts so hard that Dano uses him as a jet ski!!! It isn’t funny, or even odd enough with any class or coherence to make it worth seeing. It’s listed as a comedy, no one was laughing when I saw it.
THE SHALLOWS. It should be titled JAWS 23 or whatever sequel it is now copying. A young, beautiful surfer girl from Texas who goes surfing at an unnamed beach in Mexico. Then the good old digital shark goes after her for about 80 minutes. I can’t spoil the ending because you know it already.
THE LOBSTER. Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz and John C. Reilly head the cast of this
unfathomable, suposedly dystopian satire on our views and customs relating to sex. marriage, and it’s not nice to animals either. It’s heavy drama, with some laughs thrown in. Maybe you have to be young and distant to catch all the supposedly clever zingers. I missed 95 % of any meaning or purpose to this flick.
GENIUS. Think about this cast…Colin Firth, Laura Linney, Jude Law (as Thomas Wolfe) Nicole Kidman, Dominic West (as Ernest Hemingway) and Guy Pearce (as F. Scott Fitzgerald) !!! This movie sucks. It is one of the worst acted, poorly written films I’ve seen in years. But it does prove that editors are an important fact of literary life. Don’t go.
THE PURGE: ELECTION YEAR. What an idea…each year for just 24 hours it’s legal to kill anybody in this city. The city in this sequel is Washington, D.C. The first Purge movie had some sick but fascinating ideas in it this sequel is a very sick followup. A woman candidate for president who looks a lot like Elizabeth Warren is hunted by sort of Donald Trump type nazis. It gets bloody, racist, sexist and just plain putrid. They should purge this film, and forget the idea completely.
| UNIVERSAL GRAPEVINE RADIO PROGRAM KZSC 88.1 FM or live online at www.KZSC.ORG TUESDAYS 7-8 P.M. |
UNIVERSAL GRAPEVINE. Each and every Tuesday from 7:00-8:00 p.m. I host Universal Grapevine on KZSC 88.1 fm. or on your computer, (live only or archived for two weeks… (See next paragraph) and go to WWW.KZSC.ORG. . On July 12 Ellen Primack, executive director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music tells us all about the 25th anniversary of Marin Alsop’s conducting. After Ellen, Ralph Abraham talks about his new book, “Hip Santa Cruz:1st Person Accounts of the Hip Culture in Santa Cruz in the 1960’s”. Satirist, artist Steven DeCinzo guests first on July 19th. He’s followed by Becky Steinbruner and Ed Silviera discussing Villa Branciforte and the S.Cruz Transportation Corridor plans. Then on July 26 Michael Warren and Aimee Zygmonski discuss this year’s Santa Cruz Shakespeare season which opens July 12. After which, Michael G. Sullivan from The San Francisco Mime Troupe tells us about this year’s production. Do remember, any and all suggestions for future programs are more than welcome… so tune in, and keep listening. Email me always and only at bratton@cruzio.com
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I found this absolutely hysterical clip from The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Guest is Rod Hull (and Emu), and you also see glimpses of Richard Pryor and Ally Sheedy! |
NEW UNIVERSAL GRAPEVINE ARCHIVE FEATURE. Stuff changes at KZSC a lot. If you missed either of the last two weeks of Universal Grapevine broadcasts go here… http://www.radiofreeamerica.com/dj/bruce-bratton You have to listen to about 4 minutes of that week’s KPFA news first, then Grapevine happens.
UNIVERSAL GRAPEVINE ARCHIVES. In case you missed some of the great people I’ve interviewed in the last 9 years here’s a chronological list of some past broadcasts. Such a wide range of folks such as Nikki Silva, Michael Warren, Tom Noddy, UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal, Anita Monga, Mark Wainer, Judy Johnson, Wendy Mayer-Lochtefeld, Rachel Goodman, George Newell, Tubten Pende, Gina Marie Hayes, Rebecca Ronay-Hazleton, Miriam Ellis, Deb Mc Arthur, The Great Morgani on Street performing, and Paul Whitworth on Krapps Last Tape. Jodi McGraw on Sandhills, Bruce Daniels on area water problems. Mike Pappas on the Olive Connection, Sandy Lydon on County History. Paul Johnston on political organizing, Rick Longinotti on De-Sal. Dan Haifley on Monterey Bay Sanctuary, Dan Harder on Santa Cruz City Museum. Sara Wilbourne on Santa Cruz Ballet Theatre. Brian Spencer on SEE Theatre Co. Paula Kenyon and Karen Massaro on MAH and Big Creek Pottery. Carolyn Burke on Edith Piaf. Peggy Dolgenos on Cruzio. Julie James on Jewel Theatre Company. Then there’s Pat Matejcek on environment, Nancy Abrams and Joel Primack on the Universe plus Nina Simon from MAH, Rob Slawinski, Gary Bascou, Judge Paul Burdick, John Brown Childs, Ellen Kimmel, Don Williams, Kinan Valdez, Ellen Murtha John Leopold, Karen Kefauver, Chip Lord, Judy Bouley, Rob Sean Wilson, Ann Simonton, Lori Rivera, Sayaka Yabuki, Chris Kinney, Celia and Peter Scott, Chris Krohn, David Swanger, Chelsea Juarez…and that’s just since January 2011.
QUOTES. “ROLLER COASTERS”
“Enthusiasm is not the same as just being excited. One gets excited about going on a roller coaster. One becomes enthusiastic about creating and building a roller coaster”, Bo Bennett
“Life can be like a roller coaster with its ups and downs. What matters is whether you are keeping your eyes open or closed during the ride and who is next to you.” Ana Ortega
“Life is a roller coaster, you have your ups and downs… unless you fall off”, Anonymous
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Snail Mail: Bratton Online
82 Blackburn Street, Suite 216
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Direct email: Bratton@Cruzio.com
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BEST OF VINTAGE STEVEN DeCINZO.
Deep Cover by Tim Eagan.
